An Evening with Eckhart Tolle

Here is a brief bit of what I took away from my evening with Eckhart Tolle:

We are bound for disappointment if we believe that any external thing will bring us happiness. Getting that perfect job, finding the perfect mate, having enough money, losing "x" amount of weight, owning our dream house, buying our dream car...these are all perfectly ok goals to have but by no means are the means to finding our true selves and obtaining happiness in this life.

We get so caught up in defining ourselves by our stories. That is, what we do, who we know, what we have, or what we can do and our minds are so cluttered with all of these thoughts about what we should be doing to get where we need to be that we cannot find ourselves even though we are right here all the time. These things are not who we are and they cannot possibly bring us the happiness we seek.

When we do actually achieve a goal, how often do we celebrate it and continually enjoy the happiness reaching it brings? Not long right? Just long enough for us to think "ok that's done... what's next?" Or worse yet, we are disappointed that reaching our goal didn't bring us the joy we thought it would. So we seek yet another "thing", outside ourselves, resuming our search for happiness. We do this because once we find "IT" we falsely believe we will then be able to relax and enjoy the rest of lives in a constant state of bliss.

There is no thing that will bring this feeling to us. The feeling is inside of us. In order to access it we must be still in our minds long enough to feel it. What a challenge this can be. The mind seems to be its own entity at times, completely controlling our every second with senseless and futile chatter. When we realize that we are not our mind and that it is simply a tool for us, like our hands or our feet, that is when we can start to understand and investigate who is behind the mind, controlling the mind...and what we find is something much deeper, Spirit. Or whatever Name you want to give it. There is something much greater that we have access to, that we are a piece of. And once we tap into who we are essentially that is when we start to feel it...true happiness, joy, peace and serenity, even in the midst of chaos.

So try it, you know those familiar words "Be still and know..." Try first by noticing the space between words or sentences...when there is seemingly nothing there. If you try long enough you will find there more than you could have ever imagined.